.jpg)
She does her homework. She follows the procedure. She gets the right answer. She earns the A. And then the SAT happens. Or the AP exam. Or the first college calculus course. And something doesn't transfer.
This is not a story about ability. It is a story about strategy.
The Research No One Is Talking About
In November 2025, researchers published two studies in the British Journal of Educational Psychology that may finally explain a paradox that has frustrated educators for decades: girls consistently outperform boys in math class, but boys outperform girls on high-stakes math tests and are far more likely to pursue math-intensive careers.
The explanation is not intelligence. It is a method.
From the earliest grades, boys tend to use inventive, flexible strategies when solving computation problems. Girls tend to use standard algorithms—the procedures they were taught. Both approaches produce correct answers in the short term. But over time, only one approach scales. Students who rely on algorithms for basic problems are measurably less likely to solve complex problems correctly. The algorithm that earns the A in sixth grade becomes the ceiling in tenth. And because high-stakes tests and advanced coursework reward flexible thinking over procedural execution, the gap widens—not because girls are less capable, but because they were trained differently.
The Gap Appears in Year One
A 2025 study of nearly three million French schoolchildren, published in Nature, found that the mathematical gender gap emerges in the first year of school. Not at puberty. Not in middle school when social pressure intensifies. In year one—when procedures are first introduced and the message "this is how you do it" overrides "this is how you think about it."
Boys, on average, push against the procedure. Girls, on average, learn it faithfully. The system rewards the faithful learner—right up until it doesn't.
What Bold Solving Actually Looks Like
The researchers asked students to rate how much they agreed with statements like "I like to think outside the box when I solve math problems." Boys consistently rated themselves higher on these bold problem-solving tendencies. And students with higher bold problem-solving scores performed measurably better on math problem-solving tests.
This is the skill that Make 24 builds.
Make 24 is a puzzle game with a simple rule: use four numbers and any combination of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to reach exactly 24. Every number must be used. Every puzzle has a solution. And no puzzle rewards the algorithm—because there is no standard procedure to follow. There are only paths, and the player must find their own.
When a player hits the hint button in GSU's free Make 24 BookGame, GENO doesn't say "try adding the largest numbers first." GENO says, "Forget the obvious path. What happens if you work backwards from 24? Bold solvers find routes the algorithm misses." That is a different kind of coaching than most math environments deliver. It is not a compliment. It is a framework—one that explicitly names the skill being trained and positions flexible thinking as a learnable competency, not a personality trait.
The Fix Is Not a New Curriculum
The research does not call for a new math program, a different textbook, or years of teacher retraining. It calls for something more immediate: give students—especially girls—deliberate practice in generating their own solution paths before the standard procedure is introduced. Let them be wrong in interesting ways before they are trained to be right in predictable ones.
A puzzle game that removes the procedure entirely is one of the fastest interventions available. There is nothing to memorize in Make 24. There is no rubric. There is only the numbers, the operations, and the outcome. The player's job is to find a path that works—any path, from any direction, by any route. That is what bold problem-solving feels like. And it is a feeling that, once learned, does not stay contained to the game.
Play It Free Right Now
GSU's Make 24 BookGame is free, requires no login, and works on any device. GENO reads every puzzle aloud, offers hints that reward inventive thinking, and tracks badge progress from Bronze to Platinum. It was designed for grades 4 through 8—but adults who want to rebuild flexible mathematical thinking find it equally effective.
The book that accompanies the game—Make 24 Game: The Ultimate Math Card Game Puzzle Book—is available on Amazon with 110 puzzles across four difficulty levels, six expert strategies, and a full solution key. The gap does not have to persist. The cycle can be broken. And the most powerful tool for breaking it is the one that removes the algorithm entirely and hands the player four numbers and a target.
Your move.
— Dr. Gene A. Constant, DBA
Founder, Global Sovereign University · Foundation for Global Instruction · 501(c)(3)
.jpeg)
.jpg)
